The contentious passport photo.
Posted on 08/13/2006 7:29:23 PM PDT by aculeus
(Filed: 14/08/2006)
A five-year-old girl's passport application was rejected because her photograph showed her bare shoulders.
Hannah Edwards's mother, Jane, was told that the exposed skin might be considered offensive in a Muslim country.
The photograph was taken at a photo-booth at a local post office for a family trip to the south of France.
Because of the way the camera was set up, the picture came out showing Hannah's shoulders.
The family had it signed and presented it at a post office with the completed form but were told that it would not be accepted by the Passport Office.
A woman behind the counter informed them that she was aware of at least two other cases where applications had been rejected because a person's shoulders were not covered.
Mrs Edwards, a Sheffield GP, said: "I was incensed. I went back home and checked the form. Nowhere did it say anything about covering up shoulders. If it had, I would have done so, but it all seems so unnecessary.
"This is quite ridiculous, I followed the instructions on the passport form to the letter and it was still rejected. It is just officialdom pandering to political correctness.
"It is a total over-reaction. How can the shoulders of a five-year-old girl offend anyone? It's not as if anything else was showing, the dress she wore was sleeveless, but it has a high neck." Hannah had her first passport when she was three months old. Her mother and her father, Martin, realised that it was due to expire during their holiday later this month and decided to renew it advance.
They aimed to complete the application on Saturday, the same day that Hannah was to be Sheffield Wednesday football team's mascot at Hillsborough stadium. Mrs Edwards was also on call from her surgery.
After the rejection at the post office, Mrs Edwards spent two hours taking Hannah for new pictures, filling in a new form and finding the necessary "responsible citizens" to endorse the photos.
"The people who had signed the original application were not available," Mrs Edwards said. "I had to chase around and eventually found a neighbour who was a teacher to sign the pictures.
"The Passport Office should set this sort of thing out in its forms if it is going to be so pedantic."
A spokesman for the Identity and Passport Service said it was not its policy to reject applications with bare shoulders.
"The guidance set out on the application form doesn't include it, this picture should have been absolutely fine," she said. "If people follow those rules there should be no problem.
"The Post Office obviously has its rules and we can't comment on that. We are aware of a case in the past where an error was made involving similar circumstances, although I don't know the exact details. Staff should be aware of the rules."
A Post Office spokesman said: "Our offices have a Passport Office template which says what the photograph should and shouldn't be.
"Bare shoulders don't come into that at all. We can't see any instruction to that effect so all we can do is apologise to Mrs Edwards. It was clearly a mistake made by the clerk at the post office.
"It is the first time we have heard of such a rejection and we will take it up with that particular office.
"We do around three million passport applications a year. It is one of our most popular services and it is normally extremely effective.
"We have a much lower rejection rate compared to applications submitted directly to the Passport Office."
The contentious passport photo.
oh good grief
Dhimmitude thy name is U.K.
She IS adorable, isn't she?
Too stupid for words! Why are they going to France.
A rogue clerk in the Home Office named Achmed, perhaps?
Speechless. Even Mad Moe waited until they were 6 years old.
My advise family, use those new passports and emigrate before it is too late.
Oh FFS...
I would, too, reject Dakota Fanning.
coming to a government near you..
One reasonalby waits for 'sanity' to take hold. . . Reason to come to bear; but perhaps we have crossed the great Divide that Liberal PC has forged. . .and we are never to return.
how dare you display property like that?
Round them up, ship them home, and nuke their lands until they're a sea of glass.
"But Mommy, I don't want to go to France. They always make me wear that Bhurka thingy." Unnamed 5 y.o. girl in the year 2015.
So Muslims get their kicks from looking at the bare shoulders of pre-pubescent children. Why in the hell do we care what they think? Isn't it about time they care about what we think?
Islam see's so many threats from us (infidels), even to the least likely...
Offensive? To whom? To a group that has problems with their own lust that they have to wrap women up?
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